


Special

by BlueWonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism, Gen, Self-Esteem Issues, Weechesters, basically them growing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1256854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueWonder/pseuds/BlueWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he’s little, Dean’s mom tells him how special he is. She calls him “my special boy,” tells him over and over again how special he is, how much she loves him. How much she’ll always love him because forever isn’t numbered by fires yet.<br/>"My special boy."<br/>“What does that mean?” Dean asks and she just smiles because mothers always smile when they’re about to tell a lie. Dean learns this later and hates his mother’s smile for it.<br/>“It means that you are a magnificent boy and you’re going to grow up to be something amazing.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Special

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this is written in Dean's head space and that isn't always the most pleasant of places, so warnings for self-esteem issues and at one point, alcohol as a coping mechanism. That should be it.

When he’s little, Dean’s mom tells him how special he is. She curls up with him on the sofa and smiles as she pokes at his stomach with her fingers. She calls him “my special boy,” tells him over and over again how special he is, how much she loves him. How much she’ll always love him because forever isn’t numbered by fires yet. Forever is simply the length of the afternoon, interrupted only by nap time.

“What does that mean?” Dean asks and she just smiles because mothers always smile when they’re about to tell a lie. Dean learns this later and hates his mother’s smile for it.

“It means that you are a magnificent boy and you’re going to grow up to be something amazing.” Dean is young and naïve and _~~(stupid)~~_ can’t wait to grow up. He wants to be something amazing just like the heroes on TV and the characters in the books his mom reads to him.

He dances with her as she cleans the house and waits for Dad. She makes him sandwiches without the crust because the crusts are icky. Then they both lie down and she tells him stories about spaceships and ghosts and ants and everything in between.

His dad joins them sometimes. Sometimes he sits there with an air of detached longing as he watches them run around the house together. And sometimes he’s not there. But that’s not one of Dean’s worries. Because Dad always comes back.

Dean thinks life was perfect.

* * *

“Where are you going, John?”

“I’m leaving for a bit. I need to get out and clear my head.”

“The last time you said that, you didn’t come back for three days!”

_(It was actually four, but Mary doesn’t let herself believe it was any longer. Dean tries to tell her that he was actually gone four days last time and she runs away from him. Dean follows and tries to understand why she keeps insisting that it was three. It was three. He knows he got the numbers right. He knows he did.)_

“Maybe I’ll make it four this time!”

Dean hides in the corner of his room, hands over his ears. When will they stop fighting? When will Dad come back and play with him and Mom and why is he always gone? Dean never understands. Sometimes he thinks it best not to try.

The door slams downstairs, echoes reverberating through the house like they always do. Mom starts to cry. Just like she always does. Mom always cries when Dad leaves and slams the door and tells her he hates her.

Dean understands how to hide in his room perfectly well.

* * *

Dean’s favorite game is hide-and-go-seek. He can hide forever without his mom finding him. He has all sorts of hiding spots planned out all over the house, always shifting them to where she won’t expect. And if there is a toe or two peeking out, she never notices.

Dean is such a good hider.

“I’ve got you!” Dean squeals as his mom picks him, swinging him around with her long willowy arms and her hair made of sunshine. She laughs and Dean can’t help but join in. Mom always makes him laugh.

“Mary?” Mom stops suddenly, looking up like Dean does when Mom finds him hiding in the cupboard during their games. Dad stands in the door with those smelly flowers that Mom seems to like for some reason. “I’m sorry, Mary. I was a jerk. I shouldn’t have left like that.”

“That’s alright, John. Come on, I’ll make you some lunch.”

Dean wonders when his mom will stop playing hide-and-go-seek with his dad. Mom is the best hider Dean knows.

_(Dean watches her hide away at night, sneak downstairs to drink while his father is away. Dean can hear him sometimes, sneak in during the night. He’ll laugh and cry. He’ll cry a lot when he thinks Dean is asleep and Mom is gone. One day he hears his Dad leave the house and he doesn’t come back for six days._

_Dean doesn’t follow.)_

* * *

When he is four, Dean learns that moms say things that they don’t mean. They tell people they’re special when really they should have died in the fire that claimed everything, including the mothers that told them they were special.

Dean wants to ask Dad where Mom is, but he still hasn’t figured out what happened to his voice yet. And Dad is scaring him, always running around with books and phones and forgetting Sammy. Dean takes care of Sammy now.

“You’re special, Sammy,” Dean tells him one night, when no one else can hear. No one else can hear him soil the word special because it doesn’t apply to him anymore. “You’re special.”

Dean isn’t sure whether it’s a lie or not.

* * *

“Dad?”

Dad looks down at Dean in surprise. It’s been months since Dean has talked to him. Every once in awhile, he’ll hear Dean whisper to Sam, but never to him.

“Yeah?”

“Where is Mom hiding?”

Dad stops, unsure.

_(She’s hiding from me, Dean. Not you. Never you. She would never hide from you. I was a shitty husband so she’s hiding from me and you don’t deserve this. You deserve to have your mom back and I’m sorry that fate decided to curse me because now you’re caught up in it too. I’m so sorry.)_

“She’s in Heaven, Dean. She’s gone. We won’t find her for a very long while. But she’s watching over us, Dean,” Dad insists at the last second, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “And she loves you, very much.”

“Oh.” Dean’s face falls. He has known she was dead for a long time, but he’s never asked, never been able to get the courage to ask. He clutches Sam to him a little bit more, leans down, and tells Sam he’s special again.

Dean doesn’t tell Sam about spaceships or icky crusts. He doesn’t tell him about Mom’s willow arms or the way she laughed. He doesn’t tell him that Mom always called him special.

Dean doesn’t talk again for awhile.

* * *

Dad misses Dean’s sixth birthday. Dean sits at the table and feeds Sam.

It is not a special day.

* * *

Dad stumbles in one night, bleeding so badly. Dean is terrified that he’ll die, he’ll go hide away with Mom and that Dean will be alone with Sam. “Dad?”

“Not now, Dean,” Dad growls out and Dean steps back.

“Are you okay?” Dean asks again with conviction, mustering all the courage he can because he is eight and he needs to protect Sam and he can’t do that without Dad. And he can’t imagine life without Dad. He can’t.

“Not now!” Dad shouts and Dean scampers away. He goes to the bathroom and hides in the cabinets under the sink because he’s gotten better at hide-and-go-seek and he doesn’t leave any toes hanging out anymore. He knows that he can’t. Even if his mom lied and let him believe that she didn’t know where he was. That’s the past and Dean needs to grow up.

He has to if he’s going to take care of Sammy.

“Dean?” Sammy crawls into the cabinet with him, sneaking into the bathroom when Dad has passed out from exhaustion or blood loss or died. Dean doesn’t know and at the moment he doesn’t care. “What are you doing?”

“Hiding.”

“Can I hide with you?” Sam asks, scooting closer until his head rests against Dean’s leg. Dean gently cards a hand through his hair.

_(You can’t. Only Mom and I can hide. Only she can play hide-and-go-seek with me. You can’t have this, Sammy. You can’t. It’s mine.)_

“You don’t have to,” Dean tells him, looking at his brother with sad eyes because Sam shouldn’t have to know how to hide, not like him. Sam should be able to go anywhere he wants without looking for cabinets and small corners of the room.

“But I want to.”

Sam learns how to hide.

* * *

When he is ten, Dean stops believing that anyone is special. There are two women dead in front of him, both werewolves. He killed the one on the left when it got too close to his dad. He wasn’t supposed to move, but he did. His dad scolded him for it.

These women are not special. His father is not special. Dean is not special even though this is his first kill and his vomit covers the wall to his left. He will not get the sight of their bodies out of his dreams for two months. This does not make him special.

No one is special.

Well, Sammy is, but that’s different.

* * *

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Sam?” Dean looks up from his homework, always ready to help Sam. Smiling, Sam is holding up a picture that he’s drawn in his kindergarten class.

“I drew this for you. It’s me and you.” Dean takes the picture, unable to suppress the wide grin that breaks out along his face as he looks at Sam’s drawing. Dean is crudely drawn in red while Sam is in blue. They stand together in front of a black car Dean can only assume is the Impala. There’s a smiling sun in the corner and grass everywhere.

“This is amazing, Sammy.”

“It’s for you,” Sam says shyly, though his smile won’t leave his face. Dean loves his smile, loves it more than his mother’s smile. He hates his mother’s smile _(She just smiles because mothers always smile when they’re about to tell a lie. Dean learns this later and hates his mother’s smile for it.)_.

“For me, why?”

“Because you’re my brother. And you’re special.”

Dean doesn’t talk for three days.

* * *

_(“What’s wrong, Sam?”_

_“Dean won’t say anything!” Sam sobs out, unable to stop the tears leaking from his eyes. He’s only six; he hasn’t learned how not to cry yet._

_“What happened right before he stopped talking?” his father asks, kneeling down to talk to Sam. Dean is inside, reading a book silently. He hasn’t moved in two hours and it’s beginning to worry him. Whenever they settle down for the night, Dean is always moving, always making sure that Sam is taken care of, that the equipment is there. This doesn’t make sense._

_“I showed him a picture I drew in class.” Sam sniffs, rubbing at his nose._

_“What was it of?”_

_“Me and Dean. I had to draw the specialest person I knew.” His father doesn’t let himself be offended that Sam chose Dean over him.)_

* * *

Dean dreams of playing hide-and-go-seek with his mother. She’s always hiding and he can never find her. He searches their old home for hours and hours. She’s always disappearing right when he catches a glimpse of her. She doesn’t even leave a toe or two out to help him find her. She’s just gone.

When he wakes up, he knows she’s a ghost and that she’s still haunting home.

She’s hiding from her husband again, hiding in their old house. She plays hide-and-go-seek for a living now. It must be lonely.

_(“The last time you said that, you didn’t come back for three days!”_

_“Maybe I’ll make it eight years this time!”)_

Dean never says anything.

* * *

When he is fourteen, Dean is told he is special again. Her name…he forgets her name _(Her name is Cora Wilder. He tries not to let himself remember her name, how she told him he was special, how it made him feel. He never forgets her.)_. In the end it doesn’t matter.

_(It does.)_

They move two days later when a hunt pops up in Wyoming. Uncle Bobby thinks it’s a ghoul. Dean leaves behind her name and her hands and the way that her hair smelled like apples. He leaves behind anything that has ever denoted him as special or out of the ordinary.

Dean doesn’t mind. It’s a weird feeling anyways, being called special. He doesn’t like it much.

* * *

“Damn, Dean, bet you’re feeling really special,” Sam teases after Dean brings home a black eye instead of a test. Sam bears an A and Dean bears the story of how he beat two guys who jumped him senseless. They both know who John will approve of more.

It isn’t Dean.

Dean freezes anyways, even though he can hearing the joking in Sam’s voice. He know that Sam doesn’t really mean it, but he still freezes. He hasn’t been called special since that one girl in Illinois. It’s been three years since he’s heard the echoes of his mother’s voice in his head.

_(“My special boy.”)_

“Don’t say that, Sam. Ever again.”

“Say what? That you’re special?” Sam asks, all too curious now because Sam can’t remember calling Dean special way back in kindergarten. He can’t remember when Dean froze up for the first time and stopped talking for days on end. He is forgetful and well intentioned and still believes his brother rules the world.

He is only thirteen. His brother is still more terrifying than anything that comes out of the darkness.

“Yes, that,” Dean grinds out.

_(“It means that you are a magnificent boy and you’re going to grow up to be something amazing.”)_

“Why not?” Sam is still young and naïve and _~~(stupid)~~_ Dean knows this. He doesn’t blame Sam in the end. Sam is special, but he is still innocent. He doesn’t correct Sam. He doesn’t even respond.

Dean did not grow up to be something amazing. He grew up to be a hunter, something bred off the streets and the seedy motels that border the freeways. He lies for a living and hasn’t been to church in thirteen years. He is not magnificent. He knows his mother was lying. And he hates her for it, deep down in the part of him he doesn’t let breathe.

“Dean?”

“Let’s just go get some grub. I’m starving.”

* * *

“Dad, why doesn’t Dean like the word “special?” He’s called me special before.” The two of them are sitting outside while Dean lies unconscious in a hospital bed. Revenants were always hard to kill and Dean certainly knew that now.

“Did you call him special?” their father asks immediately and Sam is on guard because their father is never so concerned, never unless it’s bad _(“Wake up, Dean! You have to wake up! We ganked the bitch, so get up! That’s an order! Get up! Wake up! Dean!)_. It seems like the only time their father cares is when they were hurt or dying. Sam resents him for it. Always will.

“Not really. Teasing, nothing major,” Sam says warily, eyes narrowing because something is wrong and he doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this at all. He finds it humorously dark how he can tell something is wrong by the fact that his father cares.

Sam thinks he hates his father.

“The last time you called him special, he didn’t talk for three days.”

* * *

They travel a lot, but Dean makes sure that every school recognizes how special Sam. He makes sure Sam gets into the right classes and that no one, and he means no one, touches his special Sam. Dean tries to preserve Sam’s sense of special for as long as he can.

Sam is sixteen and still believes he is special.

_(He believes Dean is special too. He has never told Dean he is special again. He wants to, but he knows he shouldn’t. Dean doesn’t like it, even if Sam doesn’t know why, even if their father still can’t understand why the word makes Dean freeze.)_

Dean wishes their mother could see them now. Dean has raised Sam to be the special boy she always wanted. She would love Sam forever because their forever has only been interrupted by one fire and only she left.

She would smile at Sam, tell him nothing. Just stand there and smile and hug him with her willow arms. And Sam would melt into it, so starved of a mom. He would love her and she would love him. She would smile at him.

She would smile at Dean too, right before she would tell him he was special.

_(“My special boy.”)_

* * *

Dean lets Sam hide the applications in his duffel because their father is beginning to suspect that Sam is considering college. They don’t know whether he’ll look in Sam’s bag, so they don’t keep them there. It is their secret. They don’t tell Bobby and they most certainly don’t tell their father. They move them after a week, moving to one of Dean’s books. And then to a copy of Busty Asian Beauties.

Their father finds Sam rooting through Dean’s stuff and pulling out the magazine. He stares at his son and walks away after a second _(Damn, and I thought Dean hadn’t gotten to you yet.)_. Sam is mortified, but Dean laughs so hard that he cries. They never keep them there again.

_(Well, Dean does once, but it’s a prank war so it’s excusable.)_

* * *

They hunt like nothing has changed and their father pretends not to suspect that anything is wrong. Sam and Dean pretend that their time isn’t limited. Dean spends every night staring at the ceiling. He hopes that Sam gets accepted.

He hopes that Sam gets rejected. He knows that he’s terrible for wanting his brother to fail, to be trapped in the hunter’s life with him, miserable and hopeless most of the time. Dean loathes himself more than ever.

He can’t help it, he knows Sam is special. He knows Sam belongs at Stanford and Harvard and all the prestigious places that Dean could never even hope to look at. But he wants Sam to stay with him. He doesn’t want to lose Sam.

But Dean knows that Sam will get in. They will see how special Sam is and how smart he is. And in the end, he won’t have any say over the matter. Sam will get accepted. Sam will show Dean and be excited. Dean will sit back and he will smile. And then he will tell Sam how proud he is.

Dean will hate everything.

* * *

Dean hides the acceptance letter in his duffel. It is their secret.

Dean hugs Sam and takes him out to get food from the diner they’re two doors down from their motel. They sit there and Sam gushes about Stanford. Dean thinks about his mother, about how she would think of Sam now. Sam’s gotten into Stanford. Stanford!

_(She wouldn’t smile. She would laugh. She wouldn’t just smile because mothers always smiled when they were about to tell a lie. Dean learns this when he lies to Sam and smiles.)_

Dean smiles.

“I’m so happy, Sam.”

Dean cries when he’s alone, after Sam shows it to him, because Sam is special and Sam is leaving and Dean is going to be alone.

* * *

Dean remembers how to hide when Sam and their father remember how to argue. Dean hides in plain sight, sitting on the bed two feet to their left. They never even look at him and Dean is perfectly okay with that. He stares out the window and tries to imagine himself anywhere but there. He can’t quite succeed, but it dulls the sounds of the shouting.

_(That’s a lie.)_

He can’t defend Sam.

_(“I’m not sticking around in this life! I got a full ride and I’m going to Stanford! I’m going to be lawyer and do something with my life! You can’t stop me, Dad! You don’t own me! I’m going!”)_

He can’t defend his father.

_(“I am the head of this family and you will stay here! How dare you apply there! Be a lawyer and do something with your life?! What about us?! Don’t we do good, Sam?! Are you saying all this is for nothing?! We’re saving people’s lives, fighting to kill the thing that killed your mother! You are not leaving and that is final! Get back here! You’re acting like a coward, Sam!”)_

All he can do is watch as his family is torn apart again. He’s four-years-old, listening to his Mom say Dad was gone for three days when it was really four. It was really four. Dean knows he got the number right. He knows he did.

_(“I hate you!”)_

Dean takes the blows as if they belong to him because they do. Every word is another day failed to keep the family together. His family is fracturing and he can’t do a damn thing because he’s fucked up too much until now. There’s no way to fix this.

He’s tried and tried and tried, but in the end, he’s just not good enough to save his family. He can’t save anything. Not his mother, not his father, not even his brother. He’s tried so hard to save his brother.

So hard.

_(“If you walk out that door, then don’t you ever come back!”)_

Dean winces when the door slams shut and Sam leaves. Leaves leaves leaves and never comes back. His father stays in the room for only a minute longer before he leaves too, leaves leaves leaves and slams the door shut behind him. He’s off to get drunk and forget about everything. He’s gone. Their father is always gone.

Dean sits there instead and he is perfectly okay with that.

_(That’s a lie.)_

* * *

When he is twenty-two, Dean thinks the only thing that is special is the Corona he’s trying to kill himself with. Sam is gone, the only special thing he had left, gone _(Off to Stanford where everything is so much better than hunting and bacon cheeseburgers and seedy motels and Dean. Everything is so much better than he is. Dean’s not special like Stanford.)_. So he has to make do. Beer and whiskey will work.

His father is gone, out hunting something again because he’s pissed as fuck with Dean for hiding the application and that’s what his father does; run away from Mary and Dean and everything that’s ever fucking mattered to him. He doesn’t care about Dean or anyone else.

And Dean doesn’t fucking care about that.

All he needs is his whiskey. And damn, it’s good whiskey. Must have been a real special batch or something. Whiskey’s the only special he needs.

* * *

_(“Yo, Sam. Sammy. ’S Dean. I probably shouldn’ be callin’. ’M pretty sure I’m drunk off my ass righ’ now, but I don’ fucking care at the moment. Don’t fuckin’ care how much i’ hurts! It hurts real bad. Everything’s painless and Dad’sssss gone. S’always gone, Sammy. Don’ think he cares anymore. Doesn’ care if you’re not here. Yer the only special thing lef’ in this fam’ly, the only one not eaten alive by thi' fuckin’ hatred. You’re so ssspecial, Sammy. And ’M not. Damn, fuck this call. Fuuuuck ev’rythin’. ’M tired and exhausted and pissed. Don’ wanna hook up for th’ night. Wanna go home and have ev’rythin’ be normal. It hurts. Hurr’s baaaaaad, Sammy. Just wan’ our family to be ‘kay. I hate this. Ya know, fuck you for leavin’ and fuck Dad f’r doin’ this to you. Wha’ the fuck have I done t’ya?! Wha’ the fuck did I do to deserve this…?! Guess better question is wha’ the fuck haven’ I done? Eh? Even as kid, I was fffucked up. ‘M messed and screwed, S’mmy, ‘bout as far from special as ya can get. Jus’…go have a good life a’ Stanford and shit. Fuckin’ Stanford, man. Fuck this call. ‘M not drunk enough to do this.”)_

* * *

He doesn’t call his father when he ends up in jail that night.

* * *

Dean starts playing Metallica too loudly again, to drown out the sound of Sam’s silence. Because Sam isn’t there and Dean is losing his mind being out on the road all alone. He can’t think without hearing Sam breathe next to him.

Dean sings too loud, belting out Nirvana and Black Sabbath and Guns N’ Roses when he can’t quite settle into the road. He’ll even sing the Beatles, even if they remind him too much of his mother. He’s that desperate to get the silence out of his head.

_(The road’s a bitch on the tires. Maybe his car’s special.)_

Dean decides that his car is special and that the road is a bitch on the tires and that the only thing that makes him feel better about driving her on such terrible conditions is that he drowns out the sound of her poor agony with eighties rock. Shit, where are the cassettes?

Who the hell even has cassettes anymore?

* * *

Dean hustles his first two cassettes off a guy in a town three states down a couple weeks later. He spends the next month playing them repeatedly until he can find some more.

Tom Petty and AC/DC are forever his favorites after that.

* * *

“Dad’s on a hunting trip. And he hasn’t been home in a couple days.”

Dean isn’t stupid. He’s desperate. There’s a difference. It’s just a coincidence that he happens to do stupid things when he’s desperate.

He doesn’t want Sam back in this life (“ _You’re the only special thing left in this family, the only one not eaten alive by this fuckin hatred. You’re so special, Sammy.”)_. He’s gotten used to being on his own. It took him a year or two, but he survives fine in a world where the only special things are beer and sex and cars. He’s never forgotten Sam and his special. He’s made do, changed his definition a little to include the things that make it worth getting up in the morning.

He knows he shouldn’t be involving Sam in this, but he can’t help it. He needs Sam to help him because their father is missing and he’s lost and out of control. He’s drowning and he needs Sam to pull him up with those special hands of his.

He doesn’t want Sam back in this life _(“You’re so special, Sammy.”)_. Sam got out. Sam should stay out, but he needs help with this. Because this is family and the only thing more special than Sam is their family.

_(“Just want our family to be okay. I hate this.”)_

“Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside.”

* * *

Dean’s idea of special changes when Sam is called special. One of the special children. Infected by demon blood and cursed with migraines and visions and destiny. This is supposed to make Sam special. Special is not better; it’s worse, it’s different, it’s not normal. Dean can’t look at special the same way.

The only special thing left in his world is the yellow-eyed demon. It remains as the last special thing because it is the only thing that deserves to be called such a title. Special is dirty and trampled on, born of the streets and the fire. Dean takes pride in killing him.

_(Perhaps Dean is special.)_

Dean never calls Sam special again.

* * *

When he is thirty, Dean is told he is special again. A different kind of special. A good kind of special again. Sammy’s kind of special. His name is Castiel and he is an Angel of the Lord.

Dean is told that he is the Righteous Man. He will stop the Apocalypse and he will stop Lucifer. Dean doesn’t care much about that. He cares about the fact that he broke the first seal, that he failed.

Castiel cannot understand why he does not see that he is special.

* * *

Dean dreams of his mother. A lot. He doesn’t tell Sam. He doesn’t tell Cas, though Cas could fix it. He doesn’t even let himself remember them half the time, the images of her perfect face laughing and smiling and poking at his stomach and telling him “you’re special” over and over.

He remembers playing games with her and hiding from her.

He remembers her smile most clearly, the one she used to hide from his father, the one she used when she told him he was special. She would just smile because mothers always smiled when they were about to tell a lie. Dean learns this when he lies to Sam and smiles.

_(“So uh…so what did you see? Near the end, I mean,” Sam asks, looking at Dean with half curiosity, half fear. It is a strange look on his brother, but Dean knows that Sam simply thinks that he saw Hell. Dean turns to face him._

_Sam’s eyes turn yellow._

_Dean smiles._

_“Howler monkeys. Whole room of them. Those things creep the hell out of me.”)_

He hates his mother’s smile for it.

Dean is not special and he knows it.


End file.
